Further illustrations of the practical operation of the Scotch system of management of the poor / by W.P. Alison, M.D., &c., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.
- Alison, William Pulteney, 1790-1859.
- Date:
- [1841]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Further illustrations of the practical operation of the Scotch system of management of the poor / by W.P. Alison, M.D., &c., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![Further Illustrations of the Practical Operation of the Scotch System of Management of the Poor. By W. P. Alison, M.D.,&c., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. [Head befure the Statistical Society of London, 15M November, 1841.] Without pretending to a profound knowledge of political economy, I think I can easily perceive, that the application of statistics to that science is of equally essential importance, and at the same time demands equal caution and circumspection, as its application to many medical investigations. In an inquiry into the alleged usefulness and importance of any remedy for a known disease, statistical statements extending to the treatment of a very large number of cases, give undoubtedly more positive results than the experience of any individual; but in order to give them value, various cautions are necessary; we must be certain that the terms used in describing these cases, convey exactly the same mean- ing, and that the statements made in regard to them, either actually embrace, or make sufficient allowance for, all the particulars by which the recovery of patients afflicted with that disease may be affected ;— otherwise the collection of great masses of experience, and their exhi- bition, according to the “ numerical method,” ^. e. in a statistical form, may only serve to extend and perpetuate erroneous conclusions. We know, for example, that the experience acquired of the efficacy of any one remedy, such as blood-letting, or wine, during an epidemic of any kind of fever, however accurately exhibited in the form of tables, may be wholly inapplicable to another epidemic of the same disease ; because under the nosological term, epidemic fever, we necessarily include a great variety of individual cases ; and experience shows that the pro- gress of the disease, under any mode of treatment,—the part of the symptoms which becomes predominant, and the mode in which death is produced,—are all extremely different, in the majority of cases occurring in different epidemics, or even in different periods of the same. So also, w'e cannot apply the statistical results of the experience acquired con- cerning the efficacy of a remedy at one season of the year to its use at another season, when another influence materially affects the progress of the disease; we cannot apply the statistical results of the use of a remedy among soldiers or sailors, or agricultural labourers, to artizans, or to women and children inhabiting a great town; nay, we cannot trust to the numerical results of the use of a remedy in the hands of one practitioner, as sufficiently securing its subsequent useful application, unless we are certain that we understand the principles by which its use was regulated, and can make these intelligible to other practitioners, of average judgment and discernment. Some of these difficulties, in regard to the application of statistics to medical science, may be surmounted simply by multiplying experience, and obtaining statistical details, illustrating the efficacy of each of the disturbing forces, which can be supposed to influence the results of the inquiries. But there are facts, in regard to the power of remedies over disease which can hardly be exhibited statistically, of which we can only be assured by observing the actual progress of individual cases, before and after the use of these remedies ; and in order to give us the requisite confidence in the truth of these facts, “ it is better to watch than to count.^’ Accordingly, we may observe generally, that our faith in the efficacy of all remedies is founded, partly on well considered and varied](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24929761_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
